


without it life is a wasted time

by singingtomysoul



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Gen, M/M, a few slurs, dennis is almost a serial killer, it's this show, unhealthy relationship dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-02-18 07:09:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2339633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singingtomysoul/pseuds/singingtomysoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Mac takes a shaky breath. “I’m cooling down the situation. Official Sheriff decision. So-“</i>
  <br/><i>Dennis laughs, shaky and bitter. “Oh no. Do not try to be a badass right now.”</i>
</p>
<p> Dennis comes home from a date gone badly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	without it life is a wasted time

Mac isn't expecting Dennis back from his date for another hour, but he's always on the couch anyway, just in case. He tells himself it's so he can make sure things go off without a hitch; that's why he's always so nervous, knee bouncing, fingers drumming on the seat next to him or diving into the bowl of chips.

He doesn't expect Dennis to actually come through the door ten minutes later. He doesn't expect him alone, muttering to himself, carrying an energy that nearly bowls Mac over with its force as he enters the room. Dennis's voice has gone high and tight, and it takes Mac three seconds to realize he's angry, and five seconds to dial that up to 'enraged'. He instinctively scoots over on the couch to provide a place to rant until it's out of his best friend's system.

Dennis walks right past him, doesn't even look.

"Me. She says that to ME. She does that - does THAT to ME -"

Mac winces theatrically, all gritted teeth. "Bad night?"

He's nearly out of the room, but he twitches visibly at the sound of Mac's voice. It's a moment's pause before he keeps moving. "Weeks of planning, Mac. WEEKS, my value was demonstrated a dozen times over."

"Calm down, dude."

"I move in for one kiss, and that little BITCH - !" 

Dennis is tearing through the closet where Mac always figured he kept the laundry supplies. Something heavy clatters to the floor as he grabs for things by the armful, without care or method. Mac can barely make it out - a coil of rope, something misshapen and made of canvas, something else that catches the light and gleams.

"Maybe you should sit down," Mac suggests.

"She laughed at me. Laughed! Like I'm some kind of-" Dennis sputters like his mind won't finish the thought. He slams the closet door, kicks it when it catches on something and won't fully close. 

Mac rises from the couch, only partly aware he's even moving. Half of him doesn't even know what's happening, and the other half...

"'Desperate,' she doesn't even know what desperate is. I'll show her desperate, by the time I'm done with her."

"That sounds bad." Mac wets his lips, eyes fixed and wary on Dennis's movements. "That sounds really weird, dude, so -"

"It should've been so obvious," Dennis mutters to himself. "It's not about the perfect person, it's the perfect time. A new chapter. They asked for it. They asked for it from the beginning."

He turns back around to really see Mac for the first time, off the couch and across the room now, back pressed to the apartment door. 

"Sit down."

"What?"

Mac takes a shaky breath. "I'm cooling down the situation. Official Sheriff decision. So-"

Dennis laughs, shaky and bitter. "Oh no. Do not try to be a badass right now."

Assess the threat level, Mac thinks to himself. Determine the location of any weapons. Use his weight against him and flip him if he comes at you.

He can flip him, right? He's not that big, Dennis winds HIMSELF on a hot day if he's missed breakfast -

"You don't understand what you're doing, Mac. Move!"

He's just bossy, but Dennis is persuasive and Mac never has the words. And while he knows he's a master of impromptu street fighting, it's been a long time. "Just think for a second, if-"

"I'll go through you, I swear to God." 

Mac thinks about rope in Dennis's hands, the way long, careful fingers demonstrated how to tie proper knots. He wouldn't, though. Not really. If he would it would've been a long time ago, and the truth is it doesn't matter, not if-

"You won't come back."

That's enough to make Dennis pause, to make the part of him recalling the night's injury come to the present and blink in confusion. "What the hell-"

"If I let you leave right now, you won't come back." Mac isn't sure how he knows. Just that it happened once before, a long time ago, and part of him is still waiting.

"That doesn't make any sense!"

"Or if you do come back, it won't be you, it'll be - someone else, and he'll keep leaving, so -"

"I don't have time for this," Dennis snaps, rolling his eyes, and he starts forward again. 

He manages two steps before Mac dives for him, pushing him back a few steps. He tries a leg sweep, but he can't get a good angle, and Dennis isn't letting him do it like in the movies. Their feet catch and tangle, and they're both upended onto the couch, Mac coming down hard enough to knock the breath out of the pair of them. 

Dennis pushes back under Mac's weight, making sounds of wordless rage. Mac's breath comes back a few moments quicker, enough for him to take Dennis's wrists in hand, pin them down against the cushions. He settles his weight again, just in time, before Dennis can come surging up and knock him backwards.

"You're dead, do you hear me?! You're dead-!"

Mac glances to where Dennis's supplies fell to one side. The sharp things were scissors; he isn't sure why his stomach feels a little funny at that. Or why Dennis glaring murder up at him feels funny in a whole different way.

"Okay," he tries, voice shaky, "we're going to do chi breathing. It'll open up your power core and center you and make you not crazy."

"Ooh, that sounds pagan," Dennis hisses, still struggling to free his hands. "Does Jesus know you're cheating on him?"

"Okay, I know you're spinning right now, so I'm going to forgive you insulting both martial arts and the Lord."

"Maybe if you'd ever TAKEN a single karate class-"

"TAKE IT BACK!"

Mac goes to punch him, and Dennis's eyes flash as he takes the bait. A hand freed, he wraps it around Mac's wrist, squeezing down, pushing back.

They're locked like that for a minute. Dennis's eyes are so bright and blue, and he'd worn a tux for the night, rumpled now with Mac wrestling him down. His cologne smells expensive, a little sharp, but not in an off-putting way. Never.

Mac feels his heart pounding in his ears, and suddenly it feels like nothing could be more dangerous than Dennis Reynolds sitting underneath him, looking up at him like that. He moves off of him and back onto his own little part of the couch, sitting back on his haunches, body still on alert.

Dennis laughs.

"Has it ever occurred to you that it could all still happen for you?"

Mac frowns, watching him suspiciously. He still feels flushed - from the fight, of course - and it's making it hard to think. "What could happen?"

"Anything. Any of it, anything you want. Nothing's holding you back. Nothing is too LATE." For a second Mac would swear his voice cracked, but Dennis turns it into a hiss. "All the stupid shit you drive us crazy with, everything you pretend you already are, you could have it and MORE if you just had the balls to take it."

"What are you talking about?"

"You know what I'm talking about. But you won't. It's all right there and you're terrified and you won't."

Mac just stares, because Dennis never talks like this - this is important, he knows it is, but when he tries to think of why it slides over him and he can't pin it down, can't wrestle it into submission. "What the hell are you so angry at, dude?"

"You! I'm angry at YOU!" he snaps, voice tight with frustration. And something about that doesn't sound right. But Mac thinks of the rope forgotten on the ground and allows himself to feel relieved.

"Good," he says, not realizing it until the word is out of his mouth.

For a second Dennis's eyes go wide. He glances to the apartment door, wetting his lips nervously, and then back to Mac - sitting there, looking up at him, not moving -

He bolts to his room, and slams the door.

Dennis thinks he's never upset, but he's angry at Mac, or Dee, or someone or other all the time. So Mac knows this part really well. Dennis goes to his room. He blasts cheesy pop at top volume - 'Higher Love', for some reason it's always 'Higher Love'. He takes an angry nap and three or four hours later he emerges, a little less bossy than usual, and they watch TV or go to the bar like nothing happened.

Mac's used to all of that. And even if it feels different this time, it probably isn't. Even if Dennis is wrong - there's all kinds of stuff he knows it's too late for him to have back. Things that were gone a long time ago, like when he was a kid even. But Dennis doesn't have to know that. It's gay thinking about that stuff too long, anyway.

Usually he knows what he did to piss Dennis off, though. That's confusing. He locked the bar up. He was in the right place on the couch for when Dennis and his date got home. He'd even wished him a happy birthday that morning. He never remembers stuff like that, but he figured forty, that's a big one, this time he'd better.

It doesn't matter anyway, because things are safe now. For a minute, it seemed like they weren't going to be. That something was going to change, and he'd never get it back. But he'd protected it this time.

They could stay like this for a little while longer.


End file.
